


Brewing Trouble

by enigmaticblue



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-26
Updated: 2010-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder still doesn't quite believe in vampires, but he's all about the government conspiracies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brewing Trouble

Mulder glanced around the bar, frowning. He’d been looking for a place to get a beer, and he’d stumbled into teen hangout. From his experience, you took what you could get when traveling, however.

It was really too bad that his leads hadn’t turned anything up. His source had sworn up and down that Sunnydale, California, was a hotbed of vampire activity. Scully was seriously peeved at being dragged all the way out here, only to find a very normal small town.

“Could I get a beer, please?” Mulder asked the bartender once he’d caught the man’s attention.

The bartender gave him a strange look—probably because he was a middle-aged man in a suit. Mulder sat down and sighed. “Just once,” he muttered. “Just once I’d like to find proof.”

“Proof of what?”

The question came from a man two stools down. With his bleached hair, black leather, and pale skin, Mulder thought he was trying very hard to look like a vampire. “Paranormal activity,” Mulder replied. He was bored enough to strike up a conversation with a stranger, and the bartender didn’t seem to be all that friendly.

“Yeah? What kind of proof you lookin’ for?”

The stranger’s accent indicated that he was a long way from home; Mulder wondered how a British punk had found himself in a town like Sunnydale.

“Anything my partner would actually believe,” Mulder replied glumly.

“Your partner a woman?”

“How did you know?”

The man grimaced. “Women won’t believe anything you tell them, not even when the truth bites them in the arse.”

“I take it you’re having similar problems.”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t know how many times I’ve told her that I’m changing. Hell, I have changed, and she keeps treatin’ me like dirt.”

Mulder realized that he might be in over his head. This guy was talking about relationship problems, and he couldn’t profess any sort of expertise in the area. Wanting to change the subject, Mulder observed, “It’s Halloween. I thought this would be the perfect time to collect evidence of paranormal activity.”

The pale man chuckled. “Dead wrong on that one, mate. Any self-respecting vampire or demon takes Halloween off. It’s tacky.”

“Tacky?” Mulder echoed. “What about the—”

“Hype,” the man replied, waving away any protest that Mulder would try to make. “Somethin’ to make the kiddies scared. Halloween is as commercialized as any other holiday now, an’ the day has lost any power it used to have.”

Mulder moved one stool closer so that he was sitting right next to the man. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“I should,” he replied with a toothy grin.

“Agent Fox Mulder,” he identified himself, pulling out his badge. “I had a source who told me that Sunnydale was the place to find vampires.”

“Spike,” the man replied, eyeing Mulder’s badge with a strange look in his eye. “So what does the FBI care about vampires?”

“I work in a division that investigates paranormal activities, things that can’t be explained.”

Spike let out a bark of incredulous laughter. “They could have used someone like you in this town. People around here don’t have open minds—especially the government types.”

“You seem to,” Mulder pointed out.

Spike glanced at him. “Well, yeah. So, what would you pay for proof?”

“Pay?”

“Sure, you pay your informants, right? I could use the money. Christmas is comin’ up.”

Mulder blinked. “I don’t know. What kind of proof could you provide?”

“Eyewitness evidence.”

“For Scully?”

“If that’s what you want.” Spike smirked. “Tell you what. Have your friend here in fifteen minutes, an’ I’ll give her the proof she wants.”

“How much?”

“Fifty,” Spike replied. “There’s an alley out back.”

Mulder wondered briefly if this was some sort of a trap, or if Spike planned to take the money and run—but he thought it was worth the chance.

Of course, Scully flatly refused to come when he called. In fact, when he promised her actual proof that not even she could deny, she hung up on him.

Still, Spike’s offer was too good for him to ignore. Mulder walked around the building to the alley, looking around for any sign of the other man. “Spike? Are you back here?”

“Did you bring your friend?” Spike asked, emerging from the shadows.

“She wouldn’t come. She’s upset that we weren’t able to find anything.”

“Thinks you’re full of shit, doesn’t she?” Spike observed wisely. “If you’re still interested, it’s still gonna cost you.”

Mulder pulled out the cash and handed it over. “I’m interested.”

Spike made a big show of tucking the money away. “Right, then.”

When the man looked back up, Mulder blinked. He wasn’t sure that he was seeing what he _thought_ he was seeing. Spike’s face had changed, and when he grinned, Mulder could see the flash of sharp, white teeth.

“Still sure you want to meet a vampire in the flesh?” Spike took a step closer, his yellow eyes burning.

Mulder yelped and took a step back.

“Spike!”

The woman’s voice came from the doorway to the club leading into the alley, and Spike’s face shifted again, becoming perfectly human. “Gotta go.”

He ran off, followed closely by a young, blonde woman, and Mulder stared after them. The door to the club closed, leaving Mulder standing in darkness, although he could still hear the music coming from inside.

Shaking his head, Mulder decided that he needed to go back to the hotel and get some sleep. Apparently, there was a lot more going on in this town than they’d suspected.

Maybe he could convince Scully to stick around for another day or two.


End file.
